10 Online Tools for Better Attention & Focus

I've been enjoying the content on 99% very much lately. It's sort of like they're patting you on the back or rubbing your shoulders and saying "It's OK, you're not the only one screwing up and not concentrating enough. Here's some help." Also, this Dot Grid Book is great for those of you who like drawing on grids but don't dig the sometimes interfering lines.

10 Online Tools for Better Attention & Focus

Our pal Anthony Villa got the Photo of the Day on Fecal Face yesterday. Nice one. Very reminiscent of the Honda ads we posted in October.

Fuck yes.

Currently Listening: Monade

Listen to more from Latetia Sadier here.

Forever November Until December: Visivo Fall/Winter Mixtape

We're proud to announce that our newest mixtape is now available to stream and download! Mixed by John Madden Sex Tape, this mixtape features some colder song selections that we've been listening to a lot this fall, and either remind us of the cold or just plain sound like they're cold. There's new indie, classic indie, some 80s jams, dancey stuff, and even some Beatles in there. I'm really psyched to be able to meld this group of songs together. Check out the set list below and have a listen, it's our best one yet.


Forever November Until December
Running Time_39:53

The Walkmen_New Year's Eve
Cults_Go Outside
Avey Tare_Oliver Twist
Pinback_Penelope
Caribou_Odessa
Yaz_Situation
The Beatles_Michelle
Pet Shop Boys_What Have I Done To Deserve This?
Tacks the Boy Disaster_Frozen Feet
Memory Tapes_Bicycle
Modest Mouse_Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes
Bear In Heaven_Wholehearted Mess
Fops_Solid Copper Huntress

Enjoy and stay warm!

Forever November Until December (fall/winter mix) by John Madden Sex Tape

(If you'd like to remember the warmer times, our midsummer mixtape is still available to download here)

Paula Scher

"I drew the Citibank logo after the first meeting. I drew it on a napkin and walked out."

Currently Listening: Jane, Agg Report

Side project from Animal Collective's Panda Bear and Scott Mou from 2005.

Pantone Hotel

I thought Pantone was being pretty awesome when they started making notepads and mugs, but a hotel? Totally stepping it up quite a few notches. Located in Brussels, hotel fares are €149 a night, or €99 a night for the "Romantic Escape" package.

For more info visit Pantone Hotel.

Via Dwell.

Recently Purchased: People Who Deserve It (Socially Responsible Reasons To Punch Someone In The Face)

Just received this book in the mail this morning and it's been keeping me occupied all day. Written by copywriters Casey Rand and Tim Gordon, the book is full of illustrations and short blurbs about people who deserve to get punched in the face. Such as: "Impatient Subway Boarder". "Slow-Ass ATM User", "Faulty Coffee Lid", "Cries At Anything Girl", "Incessant Facebook Status Updater" and more. Personal favorite of mine is "Digital Camera Viewer Stealer", aka the guy who you show one picture to on your camera and then they wind up going through your whole life and never give the camera back. Good stuff. Oder the book here, and peep their blog.

NY Art Book Fair Is Back

"Printed Matter presents the fifth annual NY Art Book Fair, November 5–7 at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. Free and open to the public, the Fair hosts over 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and publishers from twenty countries, offering the best in contemporary art book publishing."

Well, I know what I'm doing this weekend. Last year I went back to PS1 a few times to take it all in. So much cool and inspiring stuff to look at. It would be cool to have a booth there one year. Let's make more stuff!

NY Art Book Fair

Sore Eros "Giraffe's Kiss" from Lizzie Boredom on Vimeo.

Great song. Sore Eros is playing Saturday night at Shea Stadium and Saturday Nov. 27th at Johnny Brenda's in Philly.

Just updated my website with a new layout some new work. Check it out here.

Paris vs New York
Thanks for the link Jen

DR002: Smolder, Wind Collar

Here's a short instrumental track I recorded a while back that I sort of put on the back burner. Figured I'd just post it up instead of letting it collect digital dust. It has more of a steady beat and I've considered dabbling with this style for future songs but we'll see. It's also a good excuse to use this photo I shot of my friend Deandra one hazy morning.

Vintage Honda CB-350 Ads

Sue me. I might be a little late on the motorcycle thing, but I think it hit me now. I've seen these motorcycles around lately and for one reason or another I'm drawn to them. The flat seat and the overall lines of them have a lot to do with it though. I don't know anything about motorcycles so the way I described it to my motorcycle friends was "the bike with the flat seat that's from the 70s". Turns out it's the Honda CB cafe racer, and sure enough I want one. Seeing these vintage ads pretty much sealed the deal for me as well, especially the first one. So if get one of these bikes, that means I'll get a hot 70s looking girl too? Not sure if Honda intended on the ad working like this 40 years later, but sign me up.

Inspiring project utilizing oil from the BP spill:

"Oil from the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster makes its way onto a limited edition series of screenprinted posters designed by U.K. graphic artist Anthony Burrill and commissioned by Belgian agency Happiness Brussels. The agency gathered leaked oil from Grand Isle, Louisiana, which was then used to create the limited run of 200 screen prints. The posters are being sold online for €150 each, with all proceeds going to CRCL (Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana), a non-profit dedicated to restoring the Gulf's coastal wetlands."

Via Creativity Online.

Strange Powers

Really looking forward to this Magnetic Fields documentary:


Two favorites of mine:

This made me smile

I Have PSD from Hyperakt on Vimeo.

Designers, you should appreciate this. Great work by Brooklyn based Hyperakt.

Mother

Mother is by far one of my favorite creative agencies around. It's sort of like being into a band that with every release you slowly realize they can do no wrong. They seem to always have fun with whatever they're doing and I like that. "Make great work, have fun and make money. Always in that order."

Mother New York moves their offices to the Upper West Side:



Mother London doing awesome stuff for Stella:

The Post Family put up a pretty lengthy interview with friend and New York native Viktor Timofeev. I haven't seen him in a while so it's good to see him doing well. Viktor contributed to one of the first zines we did a while ago, wish I knew where my copy was. Also, you might've seen these posters floating around the city that Viktor did for the band NIHITI. I've been meaning to post about it so now is a good time. Good stuff.

Read the interview here.

Currently Listening: FOPS

Yellow Jacket Corpse - by Fops from monotreme records on Vimeo.

FINALLY. It may not be new Thee More Shallows, but it's close enough. Frontman, Dee Kesler has a new project called FOPS and it's awesome. He still has the ability to sound joyous but also creepy as hell at the same time...not really sure how else to describe it. You can also download a free track here.

Via Fecal Face.

Currently Listening:

Happy Birthday John Lennon

Nice little illustration on Google's homepage.

Follow the redux.

In Discussion: Gap's hurtin New Logo

Not that I wear any clothes from the Gap (or is it just "Gap"?), but I feel this is worth discussing...

After decades of having this logo, which has become a staple in American consumerism, the Gap went ahead and changed their logo to this:


Now, it's not like my loyalty to the Gap will go from "non existent" to "really non existent" (or will it?), but I like keeping track of these sort of things, especially when it's a major retailer or company. Why try and fix something like this if it isn't broken? Who knows, but this is the part where I link to an article about Tropicana changing their logo and how it highly resembles this situation. So, as with Tropicana, there has been a huge backlash about the new Gap logo. ISO50 has a Gap Redesign Contest, Fast Company's Co.Design has an interview with the new logo, and the new Gap logo itself went ahead and got its own Twitter account.

But now comes the funny part (is it supposed to be funny?). Gap recently made this Facebook post:

"Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project."

Really, Gap? A "crowd sourcing project"? More like a "Oops we sort of fucked this one up, we noticed you guys hate it so now we're going to embrace it and act like we meant to make a shitty logo so we can use yours!" project. Or, I could be horribly wrong and this was their intention the whole time. What do you guys think? Is it hurtin? Is it actually an OK logo but are we all just afraid to say we like it because other design blogs hate it? What would you do if Gap asked you to redesign their logo? Please share.

Edit: Also, does anyone know if they've changed their store signage yet?

I Seen You @ BTN

I Seen You is now available at bookthugnation in Williamsburg! They're super nice people and have a great selection of used books and vinyl. They also always have a fresh pot of coffee going so that's pretty awesome too. Support your local book store and pick one up.

bookthugnation

100 N3rd St. between Berry and Wythe

Recently Purchased: New Order "Ceremony" 7"

Recently picked this up at a small record store for the mere price of $8, which is a steal. I love the type and how it being stamped makes it very reminiscent of a tombstone. Joy Division always had this sort of look to their album covers, but this seems even more fitting being that the song was written by Ian Curtis for Joy Division prior to his death, and then later released as New Order's first single after he died. Also a creepy, but cool addition, it has the words "Watching Forever" etched on the Ceremony side, and "How I Wish You Were Here With Me Now" on side two. The classic Factory Records logo is also present on both sides of the record which is a nice touch.

You can read more about it on the Wiki page.

Documerica Project

For the Documerica Project (1971-1977), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s. Enjoy.

Currently Listening: El Guincho

No this is not me, and yes this is easily the best video of the year.

Destroy Your Face Part III

More soon. I have ADD when it comes to sifting through bulk photos. I also bummed myself out when I changed the template of the blog and now I can't change it back. Maybe it's for the best. New site soon?

Currently Listening: Department of Eagles

Was never much of a Grizzly Bear fan, but this song by Department of Eagles has really been doing it for me lately. The tune is too catchy, plus this video is great. I'm guessing it's the same people who did the video for "Knife"?

If I ever live somewhere with a dining room, I would like this table to be in it.

DB Fletcher

Destroy Your Face Part II

(click to enlarge)

I'll be posting more sequences and such shortly.